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CHAPTER 1
GCP Overview and Architecture
Introduction
Cloud computing is a buzz word in the market these days. Every organization wants to go for cloud first strategy where they can get the power of cloud computing. In this chapter, we will start with basic cloud computing concepts and discuss on Google Cloud Platforms (GCP), including their different cloud service offerings.
Structure
- Cloud computing
- Cloud models
- Major Cloud Vendors
- Google Cloud Platform
- Region and zone
- Important service in Google Cloud Platform
Objectives
The objective of this chapter is to explain the different cloud computing models and major vendors. You will get well versed with the GCP architecture, region, zone, billing, roles, and features along with different types of GCP services and can select appropriate services based on specific requirements.
In the earlier days, organizations were directly responsible for managing their own infrastructure. These infrastructures include servers, storages, and computing powers. Maintenance of these infrastructures was a tedious task and incurred enormous expenses to the companies. These drawbacks and unexpected initial cost of setting up an infrastructure triggered the need for cloud computing models.
Cloud computing helps organizations cater to on-demand availability of all the computer resources (that is, data storage, computing power, networks, and applications) without taking the ownership of their management. It is widely distributed over multiple network which supports huge data storage and computing power. In today’s time, there is a central server for most of the large clouds, which have functions distributed over various locations. Basically, it is using someone else’s server to host, run, and process any application along with storing the data. Hence, cloud computing enables enterprises to avoid or minimize different IT services costs upfront (that is, infrastructure, application deployment, and more). Not only just cost, but it helps organizations to set up and run their applications faster with improved insight and maintenance. The IT team can well handle the fluctuation of application demands during peak and off-peak hours via cloud, which is one of the very important features of cloud. Autoscaling, which is one of important features, helps in this type of scenario. Pay-as-you-go helps enterprises to select a proper costing model to support their infra and other services requirements. The following features led to foundation and growth of cloud computing:
- Availability of high-capacity networks
- Low-cost computers and storage devices
- Common adoption of hardware virtualization
- Service-oriented architecture
- Autonomic and utility computing
- Pay-as-you-go
- Autoscaling
Cloud computing history
Cloud computing has been in existence from early 2000. Amazon created subsidiary organization called Amazon Web Services in August 2006 and introduced its main service which is Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). In April 2008, Google also came in to cloud space and released Google App Engine with their beta release. In February 2010, Microsoft released Microsoft Azure, which was announced in October 2008. On March 1, 2011, IBM followed cloud race and announced the IBM SmartCloud framework to support Smarter Planet. Google Compute Engine, which is one of the services under GCP, was released in preview in May 2012, before being rolled out into general availability in December 2013.
On-premise versus cloud computing
It has been always a debate on pros and cons of on-premise and cloud infrastructure. Both have some advantages and disadvantages, which are listed as follows:
Factors | On-premise | Cloud computing |
Deployment | Deployment of the resources is within the infrastructure. The organization will be responsible for maintaining and handling the deployment related process. Since the application is hosted within, the access is limited to the organization only. | In cloud computing, resources are deployed at the service provider's end and accessed by the public. In private cloud, resources and application are deployed according to the customer’s need and can be accessed by them only. |
Cost | The initial cost includes servers, hardware, storage devices, software, power consumption and space where architecture is built. Hence, the initial cost is high. | In cloud computing, the users only need to pay for the resources they use. There are no maintenance charge, no upfront charge, and no upkeep costs associated. |
Security | Organizations having sensitive data, for example, agencies must use a certain level of security. The security is taken care by either a third party or by a group of staff using an external tool. | The secure environment is provided by the cloud service providers. There is a broad set of policies and technologies provided by the CSPs. These take care of the security of enterprise data. |
Flexibility | When any infrastructure upgrade/changes need to be applied, the cost incurred will be by the organization. | Enterprise can quickly upgrade their infrastructure to their requirements without having to make large investments in costly hardware every time. |
Maintenance | The user/enterprises are responsible for maintaining the server hardware and software, the data backups, storage devices, and disaster recovery. | Cloud computing provides greater flexibility as the user/organization only pay for what they use and can easily scale to meet the peak demand. |
Considering the preceding highlighted differences, anyone can easily differentiate the advantages of using cloud over on-prem. As per National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the definition of cloud computing identifies five essential characteristics, which are as follows:
- On-demand self-service: A consumer can unilaterally provision computing capabilities such as server time and network storage, as needed automatically without needing human interaction with each service provider.
- Broad network access: Capabilities are available over the network and accessed via standard mechanisms that promote use of heterogeneous thin or thick client platforms (for example, mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and workstations).
- Resource pooling: The provider’s computing resources are pooled to serve multiple consumers using a multi-tenant model, with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to consumer demand. There is a sense of location independence in that the customer generally has no control or knowledge over the exact location of the provided resources but may be able to specify a location at a higher level of abstraction (for example, country, state, or datacenter). Examples of resources include storage, processing, memory, and network bandwidth.
- Rapid elasticity: Capabilities can be elastically provisioned and released, and even automatically, to scale rapidly outward and inward commensurate with demand. To the consumer, the capabilities available for provisioning often appear to be unlimited and can be appropriated in any quantity at any time.
- Measured service: Cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use by leveraging a metering capability at some level of abstraction appropriate to the type of service (for example, storage, processing, bandwidth, and active user accounts). Resource usage can be monitored, controlled, and reported, providing transparency for both the provider and consumer of the utilized service.
Benefits of cloud computing
Globally cloud computing has created a deep impact on innovation, and therefore, the political economy of any business and country. It permits business and organization with innovative concept to add an additional chance not solely to enhance flexibility, scale back prices, and specialize in core competencies, however, conjointly to completely rework no matter how they operate. For instance, by re-designing internal system workflows or client interactions that permits digital experiences from mobile devices to any or all the thanks to the cloud information centers.
Specifically, the business benefits of cloud computing includes:
- Various cloud services that incorporates storage, compute, network, and more is purchased and consumed on a pay-as-you-go basis and redoubled or diminished as required for optimum utilization.
- Cloud computing helps to convert capital expenses into operation expenses and therefore up the potency.
- Since there's no software system is put in, configured, or upgraded on persona...
